day that will go down in american history as unimaginable, inconceivable, unthinkable, and also equally, hey, what took you so long? i am rachel maddow here at msnbc headquarters with joy reid, chris hayes, ari melber. we are gonna be joining you with special coverage by lawrence or diana o donnell, stephanie ruhle, alex wagner, jen psaki, plus all the legal experts and reporters we ve come to depend on so much for our coverage of this still unfolding fairly epic story. by now we all know the basics of what is going on. what s an indictment? well, that s the prosecution laying out its charges against a defendant. that happened last week. when the public got our first view of the unsealed federal indictment of former president trump on friday. 37 federal felony counts. 31 of them under the espionage act. what s an arraignment? that s what happened today. the defendant is brought to court and essentially introduced into the legal system as a defendant. for most, that means the
rachel, the feds always want to go first. and i think they re going to want first crack. and the reason for that is if you are a prosecutor state or federal, you re the one who wants to put those witnesses on first. the defendant has an advantage after they ve heard all the government s case. and the person that goes second tends to have a harder time than the person that goes first, and jack smith will have a broader array of evidence simply because he s looking at a broader scope than georgia. even understanding that the georgia injuries will include some of what happened outside of georgia. would it be proper and expected that the federal